


[GUIDE] Podfic Project Management

by Thimblerig



Category: Podfic Fandom, Podfic Meta Fandom
Genre: Gen, Guide, Meta, Podfic, Podfic Guide, Podfic Meta, Project Management, tutorial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: If you’re anything like me, large projects intimidate just bynot knowing where to start,and,how do I keep track of where I’m AT???Podficcing, especially for longer works, runs to large projects with several moving parts.So.Here is a breakdown of how I wrangle my distractibility into turning out polished work. This guide does not deal with the technical aspects of voice work or sound editing, but rather gives a template for managing the work. It is intended for beginners, but experts are welcome to chime in with their own best practice in the comments.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: A Guide To Audio Fanworks, Fanfiction Reference Works





	[GUIDE] Podfic Project Management

If you’re anything like me, large projects intimidate just by _not knowing where to start,_ and, _how do I keep track of where I’m AT???_ Podficcing, especially for longer works, runs to large projects with several moving parts. 

So.

Here is a breakdown of how I wrangle my distractibility into turning out polished work. This guide does not deal with the technical aspects of voice work or sound editing, but rather gives a template for managing the work. It is intended for beginners, but experts are welcome to chime in with their own best practice in the comments.

# Example of a Progress Sheet

This is a mock-up of one of my progress sheets. Some podficcers keep track of their work in a spreadsheet, but I like space to expand on my notes. This is a bit more involved than I usually do (I prefer recording shorter works) but it gives me an opportunity to show all the twiddles.

> **PODFIC “Thunderpetal: Return of the Killer Daisy”**
> 
> **Fic:** http//LINK TO FIC  
>  **Writer:** Awesomesauce  
>  **Permission:** “This is my blanket permission for translations, podfic, and other transformative works. Have fun! But remember to credit and send me a link, yeah?” - accessed from http//LINK TO PERMISSION on 20 April, 2020  
>  **Other notes:** Original text a gift for Whattagal.  
>  **Status:  
>  ** Chapter 1 - Posted!  
>  Chapter 2 - Posted!  
>  Chapter 2 - SFXed, tagged, uploaded  
>  Chapter 3 - Clean  
>  Chapter 4 - Mostly clean. Need to redo “He trembled. The air was filled with the scent of green - sharp and earthy and full of menace” at 5.15.  
>  Chapter 5 - Rough  
>  Chapter 6 - Rough  
>  Chapter 7 - Not begun
> 
> **Music/FX:**
> 
> Intro - “Nifty flute riff” by WorkOfWonder - http//LINK TO SOUND SOURCE (CC BY 3.0)  
>  Outro - “Cool saxophone noodle” by Soundguy - http//LINK TO SOUND SOURCE (CC BY-NC 3.0)  
>  Information Bing - “Chime” by Astraea - http//LINK TO SOUND SOURCE (CC0)  
>  Thunderpetal Walking - home recording (CC0)
> 
> **Cover Image:** Pixabay stock images and production stills.

# Work Progress

The idea is to break as much of this project as possible into discrete joblets that you can polish off when you’ve got a handful of spare time. Save your brainpower and artistry for the actual recording and the final edit.

## Prep

When I decide to do a podfic I start a page like the one above. It has the name of the fic, a link to the text, the name of the author, and - if there’s a blanket permission statement in their profile - details of that. If I had to specifically ask for permission I’ll make a note of that and put off recording until the author gets back to me. If the original text was a gift, or if this podfic is part of a Challenge or Bingo Card etc. I’ll add the details here.

Since there can be a bit of a wait for a good time to record (or for the author to reply), I will often pick out accompanying music and images for the cover well before I break out the microphone.

## Other resources

I generally get my sounds from Freesound.org, which has a large sound library and uses clearly marked Creative Commons licensing. That’s what the CC stands for. In particular: CC0 = public domain (you can use in any way, and don’t need to credit), CC BY = Attribution (you can use the sound in any way, so long as you credit the contributor), CC BY-NC = Attribution-Non-Commercial (you can use the sound in any way so long as you credit the contributor and don’t make money off it). Even if the sound is CC0 I will still enter all the information because a) I don’t want to wonder at a later date if I missed crediting someone, and b) I’m prone to reusing sounds and this helps me find them.

I often slap together covers at the last minute, from stock libraries, and my attribution is a lot sloppier. Yes, this has bitten me on the bum a couple of times when I wanted to remake the cover for some reason. Will I improve? Probably not.

# Recording Progress!

So I’ve found a time when the outside traffic is minimal, I’ve distracted my cats with food, I’ve stretched and jumped around and relaxed my throat and chest, I’ve recorded while waving my arms around like a cartoon villain… what next?

## Rough and Clean

I keep track of where I’m at, by the chapter if I have chapters. A Rough recording is straight off the microphone. Clean means it has had stammers, and cat interruptions, and traffic interruptions, and water breaks, and cat interruptions trimmed out. This is a fairly mechanical process for me - I’m just looking for _what doesn’t belong_ and tweaking to get a consistent volume. If I’ve recorded several different interpretations of an important line I may keep them all in the recording and decide which to use later. Sometimes (godammit) I’ll find a section muffed past saving and note it down to be re-recorded at the next microphone session.

## The Final Edit

Even if the fic is very, very short, I will usually do this at a different time from the cleaning. The first is about looking for wrongness. _This_ part is about spacing the phrases out so they breathe. I need to shift mindsets to give both of those jobs justice.

## Music/SFX

A bit of music or a story-relevant sound can be nice to ease the listener in and out of the story, and to separate story-sections.

Starting a new scene with some ambient noise that fits that scene can also be nice.

Fully SFXing a story takes a very. long. time. I can tell you from bitter experience that it will blight your crops and give you acne. (But your choices are your own.)

In general, something light like an acoustic guitar riff or quiet rain is a lot easier to integrate with a voice track. Bouncy poppy music is fun, but it isn’t really designed for discrete intro/outro clips or to lie underneath the spoken word. (It’s not out of the question, but you’ll be spending more time futzing with volume and faders.) You want your accessory sounds to enhance the story - either by melding smoothly with the voice or, occasionally, disrupting it intentionally. Sad Music that cuts off with a jolt as an unexpected happy ending is inflicted on the unsuspecting protagonist, for example. Give yourself several tracks to work with (Voice, Music, SFX - Ambient, SFX - Specific) to make shuffling clips around easier. Whatever you do, make sure that the voice track has clarity.

# Final Book-Keeping

## Quality Control

While you may be well sick of the sound of your own voice at this point, listen to your podfic one more time with the original text in front of your eyes, checking you haven’t dropped a sentence or paragraph somewhere. Because you know what’s worse than listening to your voice for the umpteenth time and then having to rerecord something and tweezer it into your podfic? Doing all that after the thing has been tagged and posted… 

(Not that that happens to me, ahaha, I speak of hypotheticals only. *whistles nonchalantly*)

## Cover

As a lot of music and sound-files come with a thumbnail image, I make one for my recordings - a picture that has something to do with the story, the title, and the handles of the author and me. I aim for dimensions of 500 x 500 pixels, for what that’s worth. But you’re better off getting advice from an expert. (Graphics are not my strong suit.)

## Tag and Upload

So you’ve got your pretty final track mixed together. Tag it with the cover, the title, your name, the author’s name etc. and upload it to the hosting site of your choice. This is also where I save a copy of the podfic and the cover in my permanent files, for reference.

## Post

I double-check the wording of the Author’s Permission Statement for any caveats about posting (they mostly boil down to “credit me and send a link, please”). 

I create a new entry on AO3 and copy the original author’s metadata across - summary, tags, and so-forth - and add my own tags for Podfic and the Podfic Length.

I add any sound and image credits to the Bottom Notes section.

I click the little box that says Inspired By and link to the original text, and Gift the podfic to the original author and anyone the original text was gifted to. I’ll generally comment on the original text with a link, too (AO3 notifications sometimes go astray).

If the fic summary isn’t a quote from the story, I add a short quote so someone browsing the Archive can get a preview of what the prose is like. And there’s a scrap of boilerplate with the format of the sound file, and its length and size. Right now I host my podfic on GDrive and use a little bit of html code so the listener can stream or download. There are some very pretty work skins that do all this in a graphic way, including the cover image, but I don’t know how to use them and cannot explain. (Graphics are not my strong suit.)

I cross-post to Tumblr, for advertising, and if this is part of a Collection or a Bingo, I'll cross-post to the relevant sites.

# Step 3: Profit

Then I go off and make a nice cup of tea and eat something sweet and sticky, because all of this was hard work and I deserve a treat.

And so do you.

Well done. _You did good._


End file.
